Well, we are nearly there. A few hours to go and we'll be on our way to Debrecen, Hungary together with the Italian delegation for the 2017 edition of the Science on Stage Festival. 

Along with Francesca Butturini of the Angeli High School in Verona (Educandato agli Angeli, Verona), we are presenting "Rise and Shine - Chemistry at Breakfast Time" which is based on a series of laboratory experiences connecting traditional Italian and English breakfasts to the chemistry curriculum. We've got fermentation, eutectic mixtures, redox and extraction, which are all involved in some way in the preparation of the breakfast table.

Here are two videos from the project, placed here to make them easily available.

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​Something new for this summer!

Between the 12th and the 16th June we held a summer school entitled "Exploring Enzymes in English" at the Opificio Golinelli in Bologna. Wtih a small group of students we did some practical work on how to study the activity of enzymes from purely qualitative experiments with pineapple and gelatin, to quantitative measurements of cellobiase activity in mushrooms using a spectrophotometer.
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The students seemed to enjoy the combination of activities; we tried to keep the theory to a minimum and even managed to have a look at protein and enzyme structures using the Avogadro and Rasmol programs in the IT lab.

I'd like to thank Raffaella Spagnuolo and the Golinelli Foundation for their support of the project, Thomas Zanello for his help in the lab and reflections on the activities and of course the students for their active participation and ability to create a team spirit considering that none of them knew each other prior to the summer school. This culminated in the video which the group produced as a record of the activities of the week.

Great job guys!